Cheating for an education

One reader asks: What are you really teaching your children if you cheat to help them get into the best schools?

Published on Sat Feb 09 2013

Re: Parents cheating to get kids into top schools, Feb. 6

Parents cheating to get kids into top schools, Feb. 6

I am astounded by the lengths parents will go to get their children into schools that are perceived to be top notch. No education in the world can erase this type of immoral behaviour on the part of parents.

Ask yourself people: What are you really teaching your children?

A major part of a child’s education is learning to make the best of one’s circumstances and to triumph over mediocrity. This way we all contribute to making our society a better place in which to live.

Please remember your child still has to live and compete in the wider world once they leave school. I say to the parent that had to “fake a separation,” you have taught your child nothing but dishonesty. Shame on you!

Indera Narain, Toronto

There is a mythology out there that going to a school in a “leafy middle class neighbourhood” will somehow propel students into future jobs as CEOs.

I attended Toronto inner-city schools — Givins public school, Parkdale C.I. and U of T and had a first-class education. What school did for me was to instill a love of reading, intellectual inquiry and critical thinking. This meant more to me than the school’s address.

Wearing expensive shoes doesn’t guarantee a comfortable walk through life.

Diane Sullivan, Toronto

It’s not surprising that parents in Toronto, or other boards for that matter, “cheat” to get their kids into schools outside of their district.

Edmonton’s public schools give parents a “passport” to any school and provide a multitude of alternative schools and programs to meet almost any desire. Combined with stringent accountability measures and 90 per cent of the board’s budget managed at the school-level, they offer a school system that is exemplary.

Lacking the resources to pay for private education or better neighbourhoods, less-affluent parents will do whatever they can to find better schools for their children. Instead of helping parents, boards restrict them. Most public school boards still don’t get it.

Parents go to any lengths to enhance their children’s education, even if it means cheating the system. I do not see this as an immoral thing to do.

Parents care and love their children and would do anything for them. Is it so terrible that they would want to send their younglings to a school that offers them a better education, which may be unavailable to them in their school district?

By using a fake address to get admitted to their desired school, they are only showing how attentive and concerned they are for their child’s education. These parents must take to heart what Nelson Mandela said, “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Is “cheating,” to get into a public school of choice so different from lying about a child’s height so they can ride the big rollercoaster, or about a child’s age so they can be with their friends at summer camp. The answer is no.

It is harmless, simply harmless. It is only what needs to be done for the benefit of the child.